U.S. stock futures were trading higher on Monday as the slide in bond yields eased investors’ concerns that equity valuations would be negatively impacted by higher interest rates.
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Dow and S&P futures were trading around 1% higher than Friday’s close while tech-heavy Nasdaq futures were up 1.2% at the time of writing.
Investors are digesting the earnings results of XRAY and NRG released earlier today, while ZM, PRGO and MELI will release their financial reports later in the trading session.
Electrocore (ECOR) was most actively traded in the pre-market session, rising 46%, with over 7 million shares having already changed hands before the bell.
The top gainer in pre-market trading was Guardion Health Sciences (GHSI). GHSI closed 27% lower on Friday after announcing a 1-for-6 reverse stock split.
Biggest losers in pre-market were Athenex Inc (-22%), Ferro Corp (-18%) and Extant Medical (-15%).
In corporate earnings news, Builders FirstSource (BLDR) reported better-than-expected fourth quarter earnings driven by higher commodity prices and benefits from acquisitions. Adjusted EPS jumped 223% year-on-year to $1.26, beating analysts’ expectations of $0.90, while revenues saw a 43.5% comparable increase to $2.53 billion versus analysts’ estimates of $2.48 billion. The results however, did not include BMC Stock Holding as the acquisition was only completed on Jan. 1, 2021.
Shares of DraftKings’ (DKNG) were trading 3% higher in pre-market after reporting Q4 results that came in better than analysts’ estimates. Revenues shot up by 146% year-on-year to $322 million beating consensus estimates of $232.6 million. Adjusted loss per share came in better than analysts’ estimates of $0.43 at $0.24. CEO Jason Robins said, “In the fourth quarter of 2020, we saw MUPs [monthly unique payers] increase 44% to 1.5 million and ARPMUP [average revenue per monthly unique payer] increase 55% to $65.” The company raised its FY21 revenue guidance to between $900 million and $1 billion, indicating year-on-year growth of between 40% to 55%.
Magellan Health (MGLN) reported a wider-than-expected Q4 loss, while revenues beat analysts’ estimates. The healthcare management services provider posted an adjusted loss of $0.38 per share, versus net earnings of $0.66 per share in the year-ago period. Analysts had expected a loss of $0.25 per share. Revenue increased 4.5% year-over-year to $1.185 billion, topping consensus estimates by $50 million. Magellan Health agreed to buy Centene Corp. for $2.2 billion with the deal expected to close in the second half of 2021.
Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) class B shares were trading around 2% higher before the bell despite posting a 9% year-on-year decline in 2020 operating income of $21.92 billion. Fourth quarter operating income increased 14% to $5.02 billion. Buffet admitted that the $11 billion write-down last year was due to his misguided acquisition of Precision Castparts Corp. Furthermore, the investment conglomerate repurchased $24.7 billion of its own stock in 2020. Buffet’s “Big Four” investments currently include Berkshire’s property and casualty insurance operation, its 100% ownership of BNSF, its 5.4% stake in Apple (AAPL), and Berkshire Hathaway Energy.
Meanwhile, Regeneron (REGN) released positive Phase 2 trial results, which showed that a single dose of its investigational antibody cocktail therapy prevented early asthma reactions in cat-allergic patients. The 12-week trial enrolled 56 cat-allergic patients with mild asthma who were not living with a cat. After a single dose of treatment, patients could tolerate an increased amount of cat allergen after one week, for up to three months.
